VBCR - December 2017, Vol 6, No 5
At the 2017 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Annual Meeting, a session titled “Holy MACRA! How to Survive and Thrive in the New Era of MACRA, MIPS, and APMs” was held to discuss the implications of this program.
Based on their findings, Ms Khanna and colleagues suggest that patients with RA should consider the benefits of adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet, eliminate any foods that could potentially cause an allergic reaction, and introduce more polyunsaturated fatty acids—found in oily fish, plant-based oils, and walnuts—into their diet.
“One of the biggest challenges in the management of RA is monitoring disease effectively, in order to avoid missing flare-ups,” said Dr Walker and colleagues, adding that the use of patient-reported outcomes to complement disease monitoring is recommended by the European League Against Rheumatism.
Dr Klink and colleagues collected data on patient characteristics and healthcare resource use for 104 patients receiving an anti–TNF-alpha and 34 patients receiving abatacept who met criteria for eRPRA classification before receiving their first treatment with a bDMARD.
“Managing patients with PsA disease requires a greater understanding of how joints and skin respond differently to therapy. Control of both joint and skin symptoms are important for overall disease management of these patients,” Dr Muram and colleagues stated.
This is an analysis of the double-blind, placebo-controlled period 1 of the randomized phase 3 study that evaluated upadacitinib in patients with inadequate response to conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs).
The MONARCH trial showed that subcutaneous sarilumab was superior to adalimumab monotherapy in reducing disease activity and improving physical function in active rheumatoid arthritis. Patients who completed the initial double-blind phase in MONARCH continued to the open-label extension and received sarilumab monotherapy.
Although tocilizumab has been known to elevate serum lipid levels in patients with RA, its cardiovascular effects are unknown.
Sarilumab, a human monoclonal antibody against interleukin-6 receptors, is currently approved for patients with moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA), based on efficacy and safety data from several clinical trials.
The analysis of the COMPACT trial sought to demonstrate noninferiority of tocilizumab alone versus tocilizumab plus methotrexate (MTX) in maintaining clinical response in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who achieve low disease activity (LDA) following treatment with tocilizumab plus MTX.
